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Subway Window

November 21, 2014

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Subway Window

Old as a large lizard
and more cold, poverty
stalks the subway, careful
of the closing doors.

Older than a large lizard–
but it does not mind
the new bare-fangled, the evolved
shoddy.

So, the person whose body humps
like a triceratops turned on its side
just across from me
wears fake Crocs,
rimmed by the gaudy with which
manufacturers often brand
the cheap;

track pants of some newly-minted
fabric that, like the still-gilled climbing out
from undersea, doesn’t breathe right,
nor armor against the whip of wind chill,
at least a heavy coat, rumpled thick
as a hide;

but then protruding from khaki cuffs, I see nails
painted navy, and something about
their clasp of the bunched creases
of knuckle, lets me know she’s a woman.

And though she never turns
her head, lets anyone see
what’s beneath the ruffed hood–
still, the face of the face I trace,
a side of cheek roughed
by metal salt skies,
shows telltale softness.

I’d like to share something–
a smile, shrug, some complaint
about the crush, but she stays resolutely squared
towards the back of the car,

I try to see if she looks out
its bleared window, about
a foot away, out
to the flashes of darkness we flee
as we speed into
new darkness,
but what she sees
is very hard to tell
from where I’m sitting.

**************************

Here’s a belated draft poem for Kerry O’ Connor’s prompt on With Real Toads about Age and Youth, and also Bjorn Brudberg’s prompt on dVerse Poets Pub about de-familiarization.   The pic doesn’t really go, but there you have it!  

 

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The World According to Them

November 17, 2014

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The World According to Them

You asked why I wore myself so thin–
How else was I to squeeze me in
the world according to them?

You asked why I studied up so smart–
‘Cause the tests that mattered didn’t measure heart
in the world according to them.

Then you asked me why I made us cry–
The truth, I said–that I couldn’t defy
the world according to them.

But now that don’t sound good enough–
an answer off the fraying cuff
of the truth according to me–

a truth curl-curved and edged with cut
jigsawed to jam into spots that abut
the world according to them,

for when the cracks cracked and the frame let go,
then all inside me told me so,
that it was only words pouring out from them,

that it was me who, listening, whittled me thin,
me who kept me so tight within
the world according to them.

*****************************************************

Here’s a very drafty poem  for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt In Other Words on With Real Toads, to use a variation of a title of a book (in this case, The World According to Garp), as a title for a poem.  I’ve mucked with this one on and off all day changing it dramatically, but improving?  Not so sure.   (The narrator was much more self-pitying, and blaming, in earlier versions, which finally didn’t sit very well with me.) 

For anyone interested, this grew in an extremely discursive way from a narrative I’ve been writing about a country-western singer.  I had modified that prose narrative to use for a prompt, and then woke up with this sing-song instead.  I may post one of the others, though they are really prose pieces.  Who knows!?  Back on the road again tomorrow, so we’ll see what happens. 

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Love in a Time of Thyme

November 15, 2014

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Love in a Time of Thyme

She recited Prufrock as they walked a lawn
made purple by more
than twilight, each believing
that the mermaids would sing
to him (or her). Oh, they
would eat a peach, which incidentally
was the shade of her cheeks
that summer, the tenor of the bristle
garnishing his.

Not focusing either
on the fact that they talked (unstoppingly)
against a backdrop
of trout rather than mer–
(speckled, not wreathed,
in brown)–
a place where those
who’d drowned
had names like Rube that were passed
to the offending deep stream pools
and were probably drunk rather than waking
from a trance of unattempted
artistry–

But they, speaking in Prufock,
did not categorize the sodden
as tragic, and after the grass grew damp
about their ankles, moved to Burroughs–because who,
he shook his head, could beat
the Beats–then on to line and shape–how even
the Abstract Expressionists
were all washed up–

and, with the willful absorption
of the young, clung
to not being understood
and, sort of,
to each other,
purple tilting their vision even with eyes
half-open, the equinoctial light taking
to skin not used to being bared–

purple radiating
from the clouds overhead
or in their heads–
they never seemed to stoop
to what lay underfoot, not

until years later, and then
it was just her, and a peach was just
a peach and a drowned man was known
to leave at least one love behind, who, most likely
had to move to a trailer,
and the curls of mermaids
could only be traced
in limestone,
and she would reach down
to the violet clusters
that more than speckled
the green expanse, crushing one gently
to release its savory scent, and wonder
as she found it again on her fingertips
how it was all just there,
free for the taking–thyme,
thyme,
thyme.

 

 

***********************************

Here’s a sort of draft poem for Kerry O’Connor’s “In Other Words” prompt on With Real Toads to make a poem using a variation of a title from a novel designated by her, in this case Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.   My poem has nothing to do with Marquez’s book.

I could not find a photograph I had taken of thyme, which grows wild rampantly and has a beautiful little purple flower, so used this picture of a fawn taken last summer.  I am positive, knowing the lawn upon which the fawn stands, that there is a great deal of thyme beneath and around the deer’s hooves. 

Process notes–the poem has several references to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T.S. Eliot.  The Burroughs mentioned is intended to be William Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and others.   Also, note this has been edited slightly since first posting, a work in progress.  (Ha!)

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For Once

November 14, 2014

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For Once

We drove into the driving snow,
the night a sea,
the flakes a wake of anemone,
pale tails pulling ahead,
as we trailed, so fast,
from the deep,
as they rushed, even faster,
past reach.

You had to try hard, you said,
not to look at it or you’d
be mesmerized;

yes, I said, eyes trying to scry
the fleeing neon–
mind trying to fit
on metaphor–
it was as if, I thought, time
had let down her hair,
let blow in the wind
a stranded invitation, as if we following
too could be wild and wet
and headlong–

But maybe turn off
the brights, I said, me the one who has always failed
to take risks
in life–

But–said you who
would mingle with fate in a moment
if it held beauty
on its arm–they actually help me
see the sides of the road better, see
if there are deer–

True, I said, as if you were, in fact, looking out
to the sides of the road.

Then you said nothing,
and I said nothing,
and so, you drove on
into the snow,
the sea,
the vast leading
anemone,
and me, I rode
along.

*************************

Hi All!  Here’s a poem for Marian’s prompt on With Real Toads about the love of one’s life.

Sorry for missed visits and for long absence.  I have been trying, ostensibly, to work on a novel, but in truth, have been taken up with job and family matters, and doing a huge amount of escapist reading–which has been very informative on the novel front!  (So, I tell myself.)   In the meantime, I’ve missed you all much and hope all has been well!

P.S. The photo above is not of the phenomenon I was trying to describe–the snow on a windshield on a dark night–I did not get a photo of it–but I also like this photo, so put it up.  (It is one I took a couple of years ago–all rights reserved.)  

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Somewhere a fly

October 29, 2014

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Somewhere a fly

Somewhere, a fly walks face,
proboscis probing
like a dowser’s forked stick,
as it will,
the plain of cheek,
the ridge of nose,
edging tarsal lace
about the pit of mouth,
cutting a slant
through stubble.

Somewhere, there is a great buzz
over a bulged belly
and a foot that was pounded board
rots to punk,

and a person–somewhere, a person,
becomes less human–
and now, I don’t speak of the dead–
by pinching others apart
as if these others were
flies on the face
of this planet, plucking

would-be wings, hanging limbs
as things, targeting with slews
of water, currents
of all sorts; somewhere,
someone is
stomping, starving,
caging, stomped,
starved,
caged–

and maybe acts of cruelty
are all too human,
even children trained
in their commission, wires
strapped to small waists,

and that feels the absolute worst,
though, in the area of treating people
like flies, turning people
into fly fodder, it’s kind of hard to say missiles are better,

just because they don’t have waists.

 

****************************************************
Here’s a very drafty poem, for Gabriella’s prompt on dVerse Poets Pub to write about war.  I had some further lines about waste, but well, didn’t put them in, as the point seemed clear.  I find it very difficult to write about this type of topic.  

And since I am in rant mode:  in terms of  war (and other things of that nature),  I urge everyone to get out and vote. I also urge everyone to support voting, and to call out voter ID laws for what they are–acts of suppression.  I have worked at polling sites, and can tell you that it is not only hard for some (especially the poor, the old and the young) to get original IDs, but also hard to maintain a current ID, especially if you don’t own a car, have some instability in your residence or don’t maintain an independent home (because you live, for example, with family members.)

Also, I don’t buy this business about there not being a difference in politicians.  I agree that there is a lot of venality in politics, but that is not an excuse not to vote. (And not to take efforts to stay informed.)  There are differences in politicians; your vote does make a difference.   Ask any woman who has ever taken birth control or needed it, or any woman who has been habitually paid less than a man doing the same job (i.e. ask any woman.)  Ask any one, like me, who has been able to have major cost savings relating to children’s health care because of the expansions allowed by the Affordable Care Act. 

Finally, please in the midst of this, consider checking out my new book, Nice, which takes place in the time of the Vietnam War.PP Native Cover_4696546_Front Cover

Categories: news, poetry, Uncategorized
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Newsprint Past

October 26, 2014

Junk News Speak

Newsprint Past

There were times and places
when what you purchased
came wrapped in old newspaper
folded as neatly around–let’s say–
your nubby mandarins
as a steam-pressed collar buttoned
over an Adam’s apple,
only tied with a string
and covering everything.

At the end of shopping,
you might carry a stacked jam
like so many ironed shirts
tailored for people with trapezoidal
torsos, or if you lived in Great Britain,
fish and chips.

As you unwrapped
your fine print sacks, sitting at a table bare but for
peel curls, chip chips, you could, between whiffs
of orange or vinegar, peruse
an origami of ads, articles,
the snipped obits of those who some time recently
had died
and the whom they were
survived by,
phrases that kept
you company, quiet companions with interesting
asides,
while from outside,
came muted cries–
for those were also times and places
of open windows–not of anguish typically,
or not of extreme anguish–the crows of children
over rules, the hawking
of other vendors,
the banter of true bird, the
hum of machines
on the fly,

sweat nestling at the back
of your neck and inner arms, and,
if you were eating fish and chips,
probably also
your upper lip.

And, believe me, I am not in any way touting
those times –I am pretty sure
that while you were sitting there eating, some woman
in the background
was scrubbing pots, and some person of color
mopping stairs, and while there’s nothing wrong
with pots or stairs, scrubbing  and mopping,
they are not so great
as ultimate options, not to mention the fear stored in
closet shadows,
along with the broom handles, buckets, lye.

I’m just saying that newsprint seems a
helluva lot better to me
than plastic, no matter how
it’s used, and by plastic I don’t just mean
what now wraps all we buy,
but also what we see–that transfixed hair
upon the screen, the fake smiles,
smirks, the scooped pronouncements passing
as some synopsis of
the world’s long day, so much shiny
cheap, thin,
packaging, so much
to throw away.

*******************************

This isn’t so much a poem as a rant.  I wrote it originally for Mary’s prompt on dVerse Poets to write about news – and am posting it on dVerse’s Open LInk Night. 

This is an old drawing, but seemed to fit. 

Categories: news, News Media, poetry, Uncategorized
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Chemical Make-up

October 26, 2014

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Chemical Make-up

Let the kids curl
around Heny Swarzfigger, who could pull
a nickel from his ear,
rolling the r’s in his
cadabras.

He knew that magic words
ended in -ide or -ate,
even -ic (hydrochloric), – ium (potassium),
and, okay, sometimes -ur–(only sulfur
he laughed with that squashed grin
that masked the jokes no one else
ever got, was more of a
curse–)
(peuw)

and that the shine on his brown basement
bottles, his beakers (mason jars)
and the true test tubes–three had come
with his first set and only one
had exploded–was brighter than even a coin
made out of gold (Au), though nickel (Ni)
was pretty neat stuff–good
for alloys and sea green–and he pushed up
the wire bridge of his glasses, and, for a moment,
the small round lenses were portholes
through which he could see waves
of mounded nickel compound, crystalline
aquamarine, though actually
more granulated–

and he’d been a sh–sh–shy boy
even before the TB took him so long away,
blanketing him, the only child, in a far cold place,
its windows flung open
even to snow–
it was the froth he liked especially,
that free-form fizz that sometimes whizzed
beyond prediction, a lava let loose,
that could, he knew, if he made a single
mistake, burn more
than his remaining
eyebrows, that might even
curl up the planked stairwell,
engulf the still upstairs, dissolving everything
in its place up there, the irrefutable proof
that all came down to atoms
colliding with
his mother’s firm tidiness, till the bubbling roar
pushed its way outdoors–

Oh, then, the kids would have something to see, he thought,
now squinting in the halo of bunsen burner,
the blue glow of incipient reaction.

******************************

Another draftish too-long sort of poem. This one is for Herotomost’s lovely prompt on “mah thing” when young, posted on With Real Toads.  In this case, I chose to write about my dad’s thing, chemistry  My dad was a very shy child, intensely devoted to his lab.  This may have come from being an only child, who had tuberculosis at age 7, which required him to spend two years away from home in a sanatorium.  The drawing as is the case with most on this blog is mine.  All rights reserved. 

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Aftermath

October 25, 2014

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Aftermath

“You’re hurting me,” she whimpered.
“I want to hurt you,” he said.

In the hours afterwards,
lying on a bathroom floor,
next to the clawed feet
of a large porcelain bathtub
so white it also hurt–he’d been
a pale man–
she did not understand
that it was rape,
only that she was stupid
and that she hated herself,
and, after her torso
was wrung out,
that it did not feel
like her lying there–how could that be her
on a bathroom floor?
The person lying there
also hated her stupid self, but she

was wedged in a purple corner
where ceiling
met wall,
camouflaged
by a crack in the molding,
where she looked down
at some person,

who might in fact
be her; certainly, the tiles that backed her arms
were cold enough.

 

****************************

Here’s a rather chilling draft poem.  (Please do not take it as autobiography!  Writers are imaginative people!)  It was inspired by a host of different prompts and conversations, but not really appropriate for any so not linking it.      

 

 

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Follow-Up

October 24, 2014

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Follow-up

She called my nipple a guy, as in
let’s get this guy over here,
twisting,
but so she also named
the photographic plate–
let’s try a new guy, exchanging
panes of glass, as if maybe
some smear
was the problem, and it isn’t
one’s favorite
experience,
but she was kind,
and, I don’t mind, I said,
as she turned the screws,
really, as she
tightened them,
just do what you need
to do,
wanting her to flatten every guy in this room
of just us two,
if only she would not call me back here,
give me
an all clear,
and then she told me not to breath
and I didn’t, not for a while.

***************************

All clear, thank God.   I am linking this to the Poets United Prompt, a day in the life.

Alternate last lines:
“and then she told me not to breath
and I wasn’t already.”

Thoughts?  (A part of me prefers the first as I don’t like to be ungrammatical, but I kind of like the idea of “wasn’t already.” )

The drawing above is by my dear friend, Diana Barco, who illustrated my book of poetry called “Going on Somewhere,” available on Amazon, with my other books, Nice, 1 Mississippi, and Nose Dive.  

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Survivor

October 22, 2014

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Survivor

They visit me
when my skin feasts
on yours.

It’s become a ritual,
a habitual trick of the brain; some might call it
a glitch.

It’s as if the brain
had two hands,
but endless smoke and mirrors,
and no matter how I pick the grasp
I’m sure this time is right,
I’m left with wrong,
the wrong being
that they are gone. 

Their hair looks beautiful–so much more body
than mine–lifting off a rueful forehead–
and the flowers that draped the coffin of the one
who was buried
could not be more real, the glow of the gladioli softer
than the hue of pearls,
the green baize a flat glisten veiling
the ochre of riven clay.

You hold me
close as it gets, but they close in
in an instant and I say, “please,”
and they say, “please,” and the problem
is that we each still want
to please each other;
we were that kind of people–

but all pleasure is sacrificed–our pleasure
was sacrifice–we were, you see,
mothers, daughters, wives–

and though you hold me still,
close as it gets,
still I weep for them, one of me,
who doesn’t get to have you, their you,
still holding them;
so the brain instead grasps tightly
with both hands,
though the brain doesn’t actually
have
hands.

********************************

Very much of a draft poem for Grapeling’s prompt on With Real Toads to write a ghost story based on a list of words. 

 (Yes, I’m not sure about the enjambement at the end or throughout.) 

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